In the field of private hire vehicle resources, historically vehicles and drivers were allocated to bookings by a human operator, called a controller. The controller would be in contact with the drivers of vehicles of a fleet by voice channels (typically one shared voice channel) of a radio system, through which the controller and the drivers could speak with one another. The controller could ascertain the locations of drivers by requesting the drivers to provide their locations verbally. The controller could also enquire of drivers when they expected to drop passengers and thus become free again for fulfilling a booking. Drivers would be provided with details of bookings allocated to them by the controller verbally through the radio system. Such manual systems are still widely in use.
Where a particular region becomes busy, for example during rush hour, it is often necessary to introduce delays to bookings to reflect the current conditions. The management of vehicle resources during busy periods has usually been performed manually by the controller as well. As allocation of vehicle resources becomes increasingly automated, an approach is needed that takes into account real-time road conditions during automatic allocation.